What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘Artificial Intelligence’? Is it the movie ‘Avatar’ or any other Scientific Fiction that you loved watching? Let me tell you, Artificial Intelligence is no more restricted to the cinema alone. It is expanding its importance in all industries, be it Medical Science or self-driving cars.

But if you are not a common man and create content for the internet, or even better, you are acquainted with the SEO world, you must be aware of the word ‘RankBrain’. It was a nightmare for a lot of black hat SEO back in 2015. RankBrain is Google’s algorithm that is more user intent oriented.

Search Engines like Google have come up with features that will make you stay more on their platform and they have proved this time and again. Features like featured snippets, local listing, and mobile-first indexing are all user search-intent oriented and giving what the searcher is looking for, makes Google stand out.

How Google has incorporated AI?

In the previous section, we talked a bit about RankBrain, but there are a lot more algorithms that Google has introduced to make AI important in search. Let us look at some of them:

1. Hummingbird: this was the stepping stone of giving user experience a priority. It was released in the year 2013. Hummingbird centered around 3 major components:
   
   [A] Conversational search: Google enabled users to search using their natural way of speaking. Getting results for both short and long keywords became easier.
   
   [B] Human search: searching for renowned personalities became easier. If you searched the term ‘President of England’ in 2012, you wouldn’t have got the answer that you sought.
   
   [C] Foundation of Voice Search: conversational search and understanding human intent are the stepping stones of precise local results which was the first step of voice search that we are able to do today.
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2. RankBrain: launched just two years after Hummingbird, RankBrain helped Google to better the understanding of user intent. Wondering how? Without getting into the technicalities, let us say that Google did this using Machine Learning.
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3. BERT: whenever we get the exact result for our query, it is due to BERT. Through this update, Google started understanding the overall intent of the searcher instead of looking at them as isolated keywords.

These revolutions have increased Google’s usage and popularity, thus increasing opportunities for specialists like us.

Impact of Artificial Intelligence on SEO

It must be clear to you by now that Google gives priority to its users. Creating content that satisfies the user’s intent will help you rank higher on the SERP because your page time increases. By being consistent with this approach, you build authority among your audience.

1. On user intent and content

As previously said, Google aims at serving its user by understanding their query and delivering the correct content. So, in order to stand out, you need to understand the motive of your target audience before creating content. One way of doing so is by competitive keyword research. 

Keyword Research helps you uncover the exact terms used by your target audience in order to land on your page. Along with this, keep optimizing your existing pages with the keywords in trend to rank on the SERPs.

Our tool GetKeywords.io is specially designed to help you find the keywords that are focused on user intent. This is the only tool that gives city-level data, helping you target the local audience for your business.

You see, understanding user intent in SEO is necessary more than ever because Google uses AI and you will have to use it too in order to rank on the SERPs.

2. On semantic search and analysis

Did you know that even without specific keywords in the search query, Google is capable enough to show what you are exactly looking for? Yes, That’s true. The Artificial Intelligence advances incorporated by Google are very very user-oriented. 

Wondering how? It is because Google forms connections between the relevant search results and queries even without any specific keyword. If you are an SEO-enthusiast, you must have heard the specialists say that you should no longer chase each and every keyword because SERP is intelligent enough to take care of that. 

Google processes the semantic meaning of the query and offers content according to your intent. For example, let us say that you want to know the price of Iced Americano at Starbucks, you may type something like ‘iced americano at Starbucks price’, and Google will show you the results of transactional intent.

3. Create stronger analytics and reporting

This is one of the biggest benefits of AI: creating real-time analytics. Let us see how important it is to use analytics to up your game, using analytics, you can:

1. Measure your website’s traffic and make informed decisions
2. Create visual analysis to understand the trends and data better
3. Develop buyer persona and use this in your marketing strategy
4. Track conversions and other Key Performance Indicators for your website

Marketers can segment the audience into various clusters and audit your landing pages to generate more income. When all your data is at a place, analyzing them becomes a lot easier.

Conclusion

We saw how Google evolved during the past decade and how Artificial Intelligence played an important role in its evolution. Always focus on user intent and even without going into the technicalities, you will be able to rank on SERP and get good traffic organically.

Let me summarize everything that we saw in this blog:

1. Do keyword research to fill in the gaps and identify the opportunities.
2. Customer intent should be your utmost priority.
3. Content Creation
4. Stick to your niche so that Google can classify your website.

We hope you have understood why Artificial Intelligence is a new trend in SEO and how you can tackle it and stay at the top. Comment below your experience and any issues that you have and our team will reach out to you soon!